| DCA Update (continued) And what of that DCA Preview Center everyone is
waiting to arrive so they can see all of the WDI sketches and models for
themselves? Well, it's moved again. As we mentioned in a previous update, the
preview center was first being proposed for the empty San Francisco row houses,
only to be booted from there when the Little Mermaid ride grew in scale so much
that it overtook the adjacent bathrooms. Then there was a proposal to house the
preview center exhibits in a temporary tent out in the Esplanade, in almost the
same place as the original DCA Preview Center of 10 years ago.
But now it looks
like the Preview Center will be going into the Seasons Of The Vine theater at
the Golden Vine Winery (shown below). Since Mondavi walked away from that facility after the
first dismal summer for DCA in 2001, that clever little show has been operated
by the Cast Members of the nearby restaurant. And since the troubled Disneyland
Foods department hasn't been able to keep themselves staffed correctly enough to
even cover all the open busboy shifts, they certainly weren't going to spend any
extra labor to staff and run that winery movie.
The end result was a minor
attraction that was routinely left abandoned and unstaffed for hours at a time,
with the average daily attendance in the last few years only reaching about two
or three dozen viewers per day. The theater will have to be reconfigured to
house the exhibits and displays, and it may be a bit smaller than the San
Francisco building, but at least they can get this fledgling concept off the
ground and open to curious DCA visitors. Let's just hope that DCA park
management has the good sense to staff the center with Cast Members who are
specifically trained to work that location, instead of having overworked servers
trying to operate a theater attraction in between tables.
Emmer, Part Two
With all of this activity, both good and not so good,
going on in Anaheim it's comforting to know that a replacement for Greg Emmer
was finally announced. After several weeks of going back and forth between a
candidate in Hong Kong and several candidates in Florida, Greg Emmer ended up
staying an additional week past his originally announced departure date of
February 4th. The replacement is a man named Michael O'Grattan, and
thus far he is doing the right things.
Mind you - he hasn't always said the right things
exactly, but that's only because for his first few days on Disneyland property
he was following a prepared script that was painfully fabricated for him. The
truth is that Michael is a California native who began his career at Disneyland
in the early 1970's while he was a college student at Cal State Long Beach. His
first 10 years with Disney were spent at Disneyland, and then he moved out to
Florida to help open Epcot Center in the early 1980's. After 25 years climbing
the management ladder in Orlando, he has moved back to California as Ed Grier's
second in command and the Senior Vice President of Operations.
Michael is laid back, easy going, and fairly
traditional when it comes to his Disney management style. Unfortunately he was
introduced to the salaried Cast Members in Anaheim at an overwrought and
painfully scripted Town Hall style stage show last week. Ed Grier introduced
Michael to the few hundred assembled suits with a heavy handed delivery
reminding everyone that Michael has "returned home" to California, while it was
stressed repeatedly that he is "a true Californian" who "knows plenty of people
here" and who only temporarily departed for the Florida wilderness (for a
quarter of a century, mind you).
It's been mentioned here before the contentious
relationship the management has between the Orlando and Anaheim properties, and
the scripted talking points both Ed and Michael have been using the past few
weeks continually stress Michael's roots in California to try and defuse that
ongoing tension and distrust. Michael even told a story about bringing his young
children to Disneyland for the first time, and his children telling him that the
rides were much better at Disneyland. While it's widely known that most versions
of shared attractions are indeed superior at Disneyland, it was all a bit much
for many folks to take that early in the morning.
Rasulo's Plants
If the rather pointless and overly scripted Town Hall
presentations had one redeeming quality however, it was the lack of fake
questions fed to Ed and Michael by plants in the audience when it came time for
Q&A at the end. When Jay Rasulo was in Anaheim last to announce to the assembled
Cast Members the plans for DCA's Extreme Makeover, Jay's corporate
communications team felt the need to seed the audience with a few plants who
could ask some seemingly hardball questions that Jay would already have the
softball answers to.
The very first question out of the box at that session with
Jay came from a plant who actually fooled a lot of people in the audience, as
the plant was a real person who works in Anaheim who appeared to have the guts
to stand up and be the first to say "So, does all this mean DCA was a failure?"
There were gasps of surprise and plenty of stifled giggles from the assembled
troops, while Jay pretended to chuckle and then launched immediately into a
prepared spiel about how there were "some challenges" with DCA specifically but
that this huge investment is more about preparing the resort as a whole for
exciting future growth and blah-blah-blah.
Feed Me... a Question!
The thought then was that a plant in the audience
could ask a few of those unflattering questions that are on everyone's mind, if
only to make Jay look more sincere to a group of managers that he never bothers
to visit or care much about personally. Quite a few people in the audience then
bought it, and many never realized that placing plants in the audience to steer
the dialogue at executive Q&A sessions was a tactic that their company would use
for propaganda purposes.
If the Town Hall meeting introducing Michael O'Grattan
was almost as forced and scripted as a Jay Rasulo Q&A session, Michael's actions
in the days immediately afterward have been far more genuine. Taking a page from
Matt Ouimet's playbook, Michael has already spent many hours walking around the
parks and hotels introducing himself and chatting with Cast Members of all
types. This past weekend he was seen helping out at the main entrance turnstiles
in the rain, walking through Disneyland and DCA talking with any Cast Member he
saw, and strolling through the night time crowds of Downtown Disney.
Let's hope
he also strolls backstage and can focus on the backstage experience those Cast
Members have to put up with however. After years of lip service and promises
that big changes were right around the corner, the break rooms are still dirty
and decrepit, the parking lot shuttle buses are still overcrowded, the
cafeterias still serve lousy food, and the pay scale still starts below In N'
Out or Starbucks. This stuff isn't rocket science Michael, and it's simply
baffling why no one seems able to permanently fix these fundamental problems
year after year after year.
Year of a Million Fees
Jay Rasulo may have the opportunity to take some fake
questions from plants in the audience again however, as he is set to announce
the follow up to the faltering and muddled Year Of A Million Dreams. The follow
up for 2009 is going to be called "Magical Celebrations", and it will be
targeted around getting people to visit Disney Parks to celebrate birthdays,
anniversaries, family reunions, honeymoons, graduations, etc., etc.
Substitute "For a price" in
place of "One at a time"
Many of the
same offerings rolled out for the YOMD will be repackaged and rebranded under
the Magical Celebrations banner, although many of them will only be available
for a purchase price of some sort instead of a sweepstakes prize.
At least for
Anaheim the Magical Celebrations schtick will be fairly short lived, as the 55th
Anniversary in 2010 will have a bigger scope than the 40th or 45th
celebrations had. It won't be the mammoth undertaking that the 50th
was obviously, but it was the huge bump in spending and attendance from the 50th
that has lasted right through to 2008 that is bolstering the budget for new
entertainment and attractions in Anaheim specifically for 2010.
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